


Love me like tomorrow we’re dead

by AugustVale



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men First Class - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Cherik - Freeform, Crossover, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Manipulation, Mutant Powers, Mutant Rights, Romance, Violence, Vulnerability, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:08:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustVale/pseuds/AugustVale
Summary: Living with humans is not easy. Especially when the don’t see you as a living creature, but as a threat.Out of this fear they started to crave for control. So he hey created a live TV show called the Mutant Massacre.Ehh young Charles Xavier is falsely nominated and has to take part in these games he sees it as a death sentence. But then he meets Erik, another contestant.





	Love me like tomorrow we’re dead

When he woke up the darkness still filled the sky, clouds covering the sun like a thick blanket of fear. He found the bed next to his empty. The warmth of another body was long gone. He stretched his fingers out in an foolish attempt to reach the other mattress. Charles understood her choice to go out. The feeling of fear nagged at all of them. Today was the day of the reaping. Well not for all of them, just for every mutant.

He propped himself up on one elbow. He was more nervous then ever. Something was not right. He could feel it. Charles hoped it was not his sister, Raven, getting in trouble.

He swung his legs off the bed and put a simple dressing gown on. The young man walked to the window. From there he could see the market place. Usually the streets were filled with people, people who have seen better times. Men and women with haunched shoulders and always a grim expression on their faces. Most of them were arrogant, because they had money, the rest because they knew they were perfectly save here.  
But today the black cinder streets were empty. Shutters on the houses are closed. The reaping isn’t until two. Maybe they were still asleep. Maybe they were too afraid to step out.  
Charles was living in a richer district. His family had always been part of the upper circle, but he knew money wouldn’t protect him from hate. Not him and not Raven. 

When Raven left she heard how Charles woke up upstairs. It never took long for him to figure out that she was gone. Most days they ate breakfast together before she went out, but today she couldn’t stay in this house any longer.  
She passed only a few gates to reach the border of the district. District 12, their cage. Her cage. She had been born here, but she was sure that she was not going to die here. At least not without a fight.  
Separating the districts from the underground was a wall of three meters, topped with electrified barbed-wire loops. In theory, it’s supposed to stop everyone from passing, but the stone was broken in some spaces already. Raven didn’t know if it was the weather that had broken bits out of the wall or the groups, that had passed and never came back. She didn’t care. This was her chance to escape this world of pressure and sadness.

Concealed by a clump of bushes, she slid through a stretch that’s been open for month now. On the other side was a dead city. Every house was abandoned ages ago. The first time she went over she hadn’t known what to think of it, but the people have told her. The people, who lived underground. There were not many left.  
Some of them were mutants, but there were also humans.  
Even though trespassing into this area is illegal and committing a crime, when being a mutant is your safe death, she loved to come here. This was District 13.

Then she glanced quickly over her shoulder. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, they could find her. Charles had thought her to fit in. To be like the other girls, but she never understood why, until she grew older. Eventually she understood this would lead them to more trouble, so she learned to control her powers, to turn her features into an indifferent mask and switch between body in a few seconds. She learned to make only small talk in the public market.

In this no man’s land she could be herself. Yes it still was dangerous, because most of the people, who survived drugged their senses, until they could feel the smallest bit of happiness.  
“Good morning, Raven!”, an elderly woman greeted her, as she stepped down the steps of the old subway station. Her name was Ororo. She was the life of this place. Raven had learned to love her like a mother. She was more than Charles had ever been. She was full of strength. A strength that meant nothing in District 13. This place sucked every bit of happiness out of people. Maybe it was the mouldy smell that came from the walls underground or the everlasting darkness. She deserved more. She deserved to be happy. At least she was free.

“Look what I brought you!” Raven held up out a backpack for her. She had been to the market yesterday with Charles just to buy fresh food for her people. Here, the people would have taken everything, but she couldn’t give them the things she wouldn’t take. They were equal.

She took it gratefully.  
“How is Charles?”, she asked, while handing out the food, Raven had brought.   
Raven kicked a small stone in front of her, as they walked through the halls. She liked to imagine how this place has looked like before the people became sick. If it had looked like District 1 or completely different.

The sickness had spread so fast that the capitol had to evacuate the district. “The fallen district” that’s what the people called it, the capitol just said “dead zone”. That is the version they tell their children, but everyone knew that this district was nothing more than a prison after the revolution. Before they came up with the Mutant Massacre. And so they left the people there alone. Built a wall around them.

“He is just fine. That old man is doing nothing these days.”  
She loved Charles like a brother. She really did. But she knew deep inside that she would leave him behind if she had the chance to free herself. Charles was weak. Not physically weak. But he always held back. He wanted to do things peacefully, and both of them knew that this was not the way to the top.

“Please tell him that we wish him luck for this afternoon,” said Ororo, with pity in her voice. She was dying and still she was with them. This was bitter sweet. These people had nothing and still they fought till the very least. Maybe she should stay here and die after a few years of sickness. a few years of happiness.

“Are you two gonna celebrate tonight?”  
Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of people do, out of relief that their children have been spared another year. But at least two families will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come. And the worst thing was that the humans enjoyed their pain. They soaked it up like the cool spring scents, these days.  
“I don’t think we should. We should rather plan a revolution.”  
Storm just looked at her. Her expression became cold.  
“You should probably go home.”  
Of course she reacted the way she did. The Capitol would kill her if they found out. And they would probably kill Charles too. Ororo knew they had their whole lifes before them. She knew she couldn’t throw it away just like this.

They walked toward the Seam in silence. Raven didn’t like Storm’s reaction to her idea, but she was right of course. The reaping system was unfair. As a mutant you become eligible for the reaping when they commit any crime. That day your name is entered once, when you are under 12 years old. If you are older the number depends on the rank of the crime you have committed. Of course the ranks were different for every District. In District one the rules were much stricter, because the. Mutants were more powerful. They had more than 20 ranks, with for example giving you 20 name pieces for being on the street before 7am and after 6pm.  
In District 12 the rules were not as strict but just as suppressing.  
Rank one is coming late for events like the reaping. This adds your name five times.  
Rank two is stealing etc.. This adds your name ten times.  
And then there is rank three for killing people or entering the fallen district. This adds your name 40 times.

Raven was now 20 years old, but there was not a single piece with her name in the bowl. The Capitol didn’t know that she was there, because every time they saw her she looked like someone they knew. Charles’s name was one time in there. And she was thankful for that, because if a mutant has his name entered more than 40 times, they had to participate in the Massacre. Sometimes there were more than five people from one district, because four of them had more than 40 pieces of paper in a bowl.

And. Ow she was here again, facing the huge stone wall, but now she looked at it from the side she preferred. This place was like home. The only place she ever wanted to be. A world without the game. 

“See you later,” Raven waved, crawling back through the wall.  
“Please stay save Raven!” she whispered flatly.  
Half through the gap she realized the pair of feet standing right in front of her. Of course she panicked.  
The next moment she completely blacked out. The only thing she remembered, was when she reached home. She remembered running, the Peacekeepers behind her, shouting for her to stop.  
But now she was save. This was bad. This was everything beyond bad. She had led them to Charles. She simply hoped they didn’t see where she went. But of course they did.

“What is happening Raven? And why do you look like me?”, he said, coming out of the kitchen. He was wearing a suit, ready to go.  
To her surprise , Charles had laid out a beautiful dress for her. A soft blue thing with matching shoes.  
“I am,” she stuttered,”it’s nothing.” Then she heard it. A heavy knock on the door. She quickly turned back to her normal self.  
“Who is there at the door, Raven?” Charles asked, with blank shock on his face.  
Raven ran up the stairs faster than ever.  
“Don’t you dare open the door,” she shouted back over her shoulder, before shutting herself into her room. She even shoved her closet in front of the door, before cowering down on the floor. She hated herself for this. Why wasn’t she more careful. She could scream at herself, but that wouldn’t help. So she stayed quiet and waited. She didn’t knew for what, just that Charles was going to fix this.

Downstairs Charles opened the door. He didn’t know what Raven had done, only that she was in trouble. But he didn’t care. He would talk to the Peacekeepers and everything would be fine.   
Charles couldn’t even bring a word out, when he felt a piercing pain in his chest, that spread faster than he could react. The moment after he felt his knees buckle and everything went dark.

Later that day Raven woke up. She was still laying on the floor.  
“Shit the reaping!”  
She couldn’t remember when she fell asleep, only that this was not good at all.  
She heard the song in the distance that announced the beginning of the reaping. She was too late.   
“Fuck.”  
After bringing her closet into it’s normal position she hurried down.  
“Charles?” she screamed, but no one answered. Maybe he had left earlier to be on time. This didn’t feel like Charles, but she couldn’t think of another place he would be at the moment.

She put the dress on in a hurry, but stopped when she saw her reflection in the mirrors. She looked nothing like the last time.  
Last time they had left together.  
“Let’s put your hair up,too,” Charles had said. Raven had let him towel-dry it and braid it up on her head. She had hardly recognized herself.  
“You look beautiful,” he had said in a hushed voice.  
“And nothing like myself!” she had answered. And then she had hugged him, because she had known that these next few hours would be terrible for him. She wanted to protect him, but she knew that she was powerless against the reaping.

She shook he head. There was no time for those thoughts right now. She had to be there for Charles. She was now running. Attendance is mandatory unless you’re on death’s door. This evening, officials will come around and check to see if this is the case. If not, you’ll be imprisoned and your name is added 10 times for the next games.  
It’s too bad, really, that they hold the reaping in the square - one the few places in District 12 that can be pleasant. The square’s surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there’s good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the building, there’s an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.

People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the mutant population as well. Humans don’t have to come, but the most do. They see the reaping as an entertaining event.  
The mutants were herded not roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones toward the back. Family members, who are human, line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another’s hand.   
The space got tighter, more claustrophobic, as humans arrive. Sure they don’t have to arrive on time. They don’t care.  
The square’s quite large, but not enough to hold District 12’s population of about eight thousand. 7972 human and 28 mutants.

She found herself standing in an adjacent street, near the stage, where all the latecomers could watch the event on screens as it’s televised live by the state. She tried to find Charles in the crowd but he was nowhere to be found, so she focused her attention on the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium and one large glass ball.  
Raven stared at the paper slips in the ball. One of them had Charles Xavier written on them in careful handwriting.

Two of the three chairs had been filled with the mayor, who’s a tall, balding man, and Jean Grey, District 12’s escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary dark eyes, red hair and coal black suit. The people murmured to each other and then looked with concern at the empty seat. Now the mayor was reading the same story, he was reading every year, at the podium. He tells the history of this country, the country that had risen up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that had swallowed up so much land, the brutal war between the humankind and the mutants. The result was this shit hole, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. 

Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the mutant district against the Capitol. This District, called District 13 were defeated and obliterated. Now the mutants were divided up and living with the humans. District one contained the strongest humans and strongest mutants, while District 12 had the the weakest humans and mutants. But that was not enough.  
The Treaty of Treason had given them the new laws to guarantee peace and, as their yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave them the Mutant Massacre.

The rules of the Mutant Massacre were simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide at least one mutant, called tributes, to participate.  
The tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors ist fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.  
Taking mutant kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch - this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift one finger, we will destroy every last one of you.”

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol required the the mutants to treat the Massacre as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest battle starvation.  
“It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks,” intones the mayor.

Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, they have had exactly two. Only one was still alive. Logan, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appeared hollering something unintelligible, staggered on to the stage, and fell into the third chair. He was drunk. Very. The crowd responded with its token applause, but he was confused and tried to give Jean Grey a big hug, which she managed to fend off.

The mayor looked distressed. Since all of this was being televised, right now District 12 was the laughing stock of the country, and he knew it. He quickly tried to pull the attention back to the reaping and introduced Jean Grey.

With a neutral expression and a straight position, Jean Grey trotted to the podium and gave he signature, “Happy Mutant Games. And may the odds be *ever* in your favor.” Her hair was now a bit ruffled since her encounter with Logan. She went on a bit about what an honor it is to participate, because all the criminals get another chance from the Capitol, although everyone knew that she was just arching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molested her in front of the entire nation.

Then it was time for the drawing. Jean Grey said as she always did, “Let’s find out who will join our two other contestants.” and crossed to the glass ball with the names.  
Wait what? Two other mutants had more than 40 names in the bowl. But who was it? Raven could feel how her body began to feel ill. This was not right.

Jean reached in, dug her hand deep into the ball and pulled out a slip of paper. Th crowd drew in a collective breath and then they could hear a pin drop, and Raven was feeling even more nauseous and so desperately hoping that it was not Charles’s name. That it’s not him. Please not him.  
Jean crossed back to the podium, smoothed the slip of paper, and read out the name in a clear voice.  
*Eireen* *Fox*  
It was not Charles. She almost started to cry again out of relief. This was now over. Another year of living was just in front of them. 

Th n she saw her. Somewhere far away, she could hear the crowd murmuring unhappily, as they always do when a young girl gets chosen, because no mutant thinks this was fair. The blood drained from her face, hands clenched in fists at her sides, walking with stiff, small steps up towards the stage, passing Raven. Everyone just let her go. They knew there was no point in trying. She mounted the steps slowly and came to a stop next to Jean, who was not looking pleased herself, but she quickly switched back to her neutral face.  
She quickly introduces the girl and then waves the two other two mutants onto the stage.

At this moment Raven tried to remember how to breath, unable to speak, totally stunned as the names bounced around the inside of her skull. It was if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from her lungs. Someone was grappling her arm, a human boy, and she thought maybe she had started to fall and he had caught her. There must have been some mistake. This couldn’t be happening. Charles was one slip of paper in hundreds. His chance of being chosen had been so remote that she had almost not even bothered to worry about him. The odds should have been entirely in his favour. But it hadn’t mattered.

He was a complete mess. His hair was ruffled and his clothes not as smooth, as they always were, his face completely neutral.  
“Charles!” The strangled cry came out of her throat, and her muscles began to move again.  
“Charles!” She had to shove through the crowd. There was some confusion on the stage. The other two tributes were now looking at Raven with hope in their faces, but when her eyes met Charles’s her whole body stopped. She was completely frozen in place. He shook his head softly.

This was not fair, she thought. She wanted to take his place. She wanted him to live. In this district the word *tribute* was pretty much a synonymous with the word *corpse*.  
Jean looked at Raven and then back to Charles, before turning to the crowd.  
“Come on, everybody. Let’s give a big round of applause to our tributes.”  
Of course the humans started clapping immediately, but not one mutant moved. Most of them knew Charles. Not like Raven,he was well liked. So instead of acknowledging applause, he stood there unmoving while they took part in the boldest form of dissent they could manage. Silence.

Then something unexpected happened. At least, Raven didn’t expect it because she didn’t think of District 12 as a place that would care about them. But Charles was someone precious to them. At first one, then another, then almost every mutant crosses their arms in the form of a **X** in front of their bodies. It is an old and rarely used gesture of District 13, occasionally seen at funerals. It meant thanks, it meant admiration, it meant goodbye to someone you love.

Charles was now truly in danger of crying, but fortunately Logan chose this time to come staggering across the stage to congratulate them. “Look at him. Look at this one.” he hollered, throwing an arm around his shoulders. He was surprisingly strong for such a wreck. His breath reeked of liquor and had been a long time since he had bathed.  
“These people are more than you will ever be.” he shouted, pointing directly into the camera. He released Charles and started for the front of the stage.  
Charles didn’t know if the man was addressing the audience or if he was so drunk that he might was taunting the Capitol. He really didn’t care. But at the same time he was grateful. With every camera turned away, he had just another time to release the small, choked sound in his throat and composed himself. He put his hands behind his back and stared into the distance. Maybe he should have left this district with Raven to run off to District 13.

After Logan was whisked away on a stretcher the mayor began to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason as he did every year at this point - it was required - but Charles wasn’t listening to one word.  
Why them? He thought. He looked over to the two other contestants. The girl was quietly sobbing and the man was staring at his feet. It shouldn’t matter to him. They were not friends. Not even neighbours. But he knew that their powers wouldn’t help them in a fight for their lifes. The little girl could fly and Klaus, the middle-aged man could heal everyone, but himself, with just a single touch.

Then finally the mayor finished the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for them to shake hands. Klaus has solid and warm hands. He looked Charles right in the eye and gave his hand what he think was meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it was just a nervous spasm. Eireen is still heavily crying so he just squeezed her shoulder. After that they turned back to face the crowd as the anthem played.  
Charles sighed. District one and two had 4 Tributes, District three and five 2, District four, seven and nine 1 and the rest 3 Tributes.  
30 Tributes, he thought. Charles knew he was going to die. And that was okay. There was no chance to that he would kill another being.


End file.
